Hack  A New World – Rise of ShadowNova
by ShadowGuardian507
Summary: The Guardians' Tales : .hack/A New World – Rise of ShadowNova.  Max/Shadow, a hacker and coder, enters 'The World' intent on testing their skills against AIDA and other anomalies in the system.  Intended to be a short story. updated when I have time/ideas
1. Chapter 1 : Preparation

**The Guardians' Tales : .hack/A New World** – Rise of ShadowNova

**Disclaimer:**

I do not claim any ownership of the .hack universe, this tale is in no way intended to infringe on any copyright.

* * *

**Chapter 1 : Preparation**

_Max's POV_

I surveyed the out come of my days of work and months of planing. Slowly and carefully I checked my equipment, its connections and status. Finally satisfied that all was in order, I walked away from the ten rows of ten 48U cabinets, I had named the 'processing towers', back toward the virtual environment interface, safety system and net-connection units. These were housed in two 20U cabinets ten meters from the VEI.

The safety/net-con units were the most important part of the setup. The two cabinets contained duplicate setups, truth be told the whole system had be setup with resiliency and stability in mind.

I walked up to the first of the cabinets and turned on its power, the UPS modules hummed into life closely followed by the fibre network switches, then the VEI interface processors, then the internet connection units flicking from offline to on as all ten of them made a connection. Lastly the safety link system units powered up, their status displays sliding out and tilting up showing their connections to the processing towers, the net connections and the VEL.

Soon the four SLS units were ready in standby mode, their link cores glowing amber, I lent forward and pushed them in causing them to switch from amber to white, denoting that they were now fully active and connected.

I went though the same process with the second cabinet then walked over to the VEL, I climbed into the support frame and checked its connections to my VR suit, finally I lowered the VR visor over my eyes and 'entered' a white room with glowing holographic console in the centre of it.

This was the central control interface for the system, I had made; with the exception of the SLS units, control to those was, by design, off grid.

I walked forward to the console and toggled the activation switches, bringing the processing towers from standby to active, suddenly the environment shimmed then cleared pin sharp. This was expected, those systems were designed to create a photo-real interface whilst still having lots of processing power leftover for other things. I then went through a series of system tests and calibration routines. Now ready I said, "System. Link to global network via 'ALTIMIT Mine' emulation interface", a pleasant synthesised female voice responded "please supply passcode to establish link", "code word 'osiris'", "code word accepted", "Load tracker blocker, load mirror barricade, load 'The World', load .hack patch", "loading software please stand by."

– –


	2. Chapter 2 : Entering The World

**Chapter 2 : Entering The World**

_Shadow's POV_

Two minutes later the voice said "Load complete, please select avatar data", "load ShadowStrike with Infinium-Epitaph patch ShadowNova version one", "loading data into 'The World' please prepare for transition", the white room faded around me to be replaced by view I was familiar with from the manual included with the game download, this had to be the 'chaos gate' room in the starting root town, Mac Anu.

'Ok', I thought to my self, 'now its time to check the remote systems command interface', I started to equip the interface tablet but then though better of it, after all the chaos gate room would be a high traffic area and despite the fact that most people would think it was just some rare item I did not want to draw un-wanted attention to my self, at least this early on anyway. 'Right time to go explore this root town and find some quiet spot' I thought, with that decided I headed out into Mac Anu and off to find that perfect secluded spot.

– –

_Shino's POV_

I was on my way to meet up with Haseo at the Arche Koeln Waterfall, when I saw a new and strange character appear in the chaos gate room. Quickly I backed in to the shadows of the room, for some reason I felt it would be best not to be seen.

The character had a floor length iridescent black cape that hid his back and most of his body. His hair was raven black with white highlights, three waist-length braids hung down from the back of his head, held parallel to each other at some points by shimmering obsidian clamps.

As he looked around the room, I noticed that he had a silver coloured metal head band with a infinity glyph floating just over a triquetra symbol that was branded into the band in black. His skin was pale white bordering on being ghostly, but the eyes were the most memorable thing; the pupils glowed gold, the irises were pure silver and the rest of the eye was blacker than the darkest night.

The character made as if to pull out some item and in doing so gave me a brief glimpse of a black feathered wing that nearly brushed the floor. Carefully I moved even further back. Those feathers really gave me the creeps, it was as if they spilled shadow into the room. The character glanced around the room one more time, then shrugging his shoulders walked out of the room and off into the town. Still slightly shivering I walked up to the chaos gate and teleported to the lost ground where Haseo would be waiting, still wondering how a level one, new player could have such an imposing presence.

– –


	3. Chapter 3 : A Place of Solace

**Chapter 3 : A Place of Solace**

_Shadow's POV_

I walked around town for a while looking for some where quiet but no where was secluded enough for my purposes. Slowly I made my way back toward the chaos gate, it looked like I would have to go somewhere else for privacy I wanted. I had heard of an area called "Hulle Granz Cathedral" it was a lost ground and not too well known, plus the system admins held no power there, no more than their characters had anyway.

With that though I used the chaos gate to get there, then satisfied that no one was around, I opened my wings causing my cape to fall neatly between them and flew up to the roof of the cathedral. Slowly I walked along the roof until I found a window into the roof space, it should be secluded enough in there I though, sliding a long thin blade between the window and its frame soon I had lifted its latch and the window was open. I moved into the roof space of the building looking around for any potential way anyone could get up here.

My investigation did not take too long and all I found was one trapdoor, I dealt with this by adding a wall across the room closing off the part with the trapdoor in it. The sysadmins may not be able to get rid of these lost grounds but it seemed that a hacker and cracker of my level could at least add to them, even if I could not remove from them. The wall had been my second idea, my first had been to simply delete the trapdoor all together.

Now finally having a quiet, secure place I settled down onto the floor and used my interface tablet to create a system status unit against one of the walls, I had planned to just access the info from the interface tablet itself but now I had somewhere no one knew off I may as well make a full job of it.

After checking on things, my thoughts drifted back to the window I had used to get in here; that, I would have to do something about. Sure no one else could use the interface I had added to the room but still, better that no one knew about it in the first place. I added another wall across the room closing off the section with the window in it, then added a concealed puzzle door to it, I reasoned that having a backup way in would be a good idea so adding the puzzle door seemed to be the logical thing to do.

'Now' I thought, 'time to add a hack-gate to this place', I walked over to the corner of the room farthest away from the interface I had added, I settled my character to the floor once more and focused on making a permanent hack-gate. This would be harder than adding normal hack-gates, those only went to one place, never received incoming connections and were only around for a short time. This on the other hand would be closer to a normal chaos gate, slowly and carefully I 'wrote' the gate into being, blending it into the environment's code hiding it from prying eyes, finally I added its location code words, "Fallen Lost Shadow Wings Glade of Solace", sure that was more code words than to get to a normal area but it would make it hard to get to by sheer dumb luck, as one last protective measure I made it so that it could only be accessed from chaos gates in lost grounds.

I got up, stretched, and looked at what my code had wrought. The gate looked like any other chaos gate in many respects except that it was silver in colour not gold and the orbs in its centre emanated shadow not light, this seemed appropriate as it was meant to be a concealed gate. I walked up to it and gave it the code words "Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground" and found my self standing back outside the cathedral, then I tested the return path by giving that gate the code words I had set up earlier and I was back where I had come from, 'well looks like that's all working as it should be' I thought happily and smiled.


	4. Chapter 4 : Test Run

**Chapter 4 : Test Run**

_Shadow's POV_

Now I had a base, I figured it would be a good idea to test the limits of this body, so I set out to one of the hardest levels I could find. It was rumoured that un-killable monsters appeared in this area, and that the minimum level of any monster in that area was 60, so either way I would be able to try out my Infinium-Epitaph form against something that could actually challenge it.

So I entered the code words Unlimited Doomed Agonizing into the chaos gate at the entrance to the cathedral, un-surprisingly I got a message back from the gate

"area locked-out, your level is to low"

_[Authors note: Suggested BGM for the following battle, Dark Wings by Within Temptation]_

but three seconds of gate hacking later I was at my chosen field. I walked slowly away from the chaos gate across rocky barren wasteland in search of a monster to kill, I didn't have to wait long as I soon came across an enemy sporn-in point, carefully I advanced until the point activated and produced an 'Armoured Super Shogun'. The creature was level 65 and it looked decidedly displeased at me for having disturbed it, quickly I jumped backward to avoid the swing of its sword simultaneously equipping my own dual long swords 'Edge of Infinity'.

I jumped toward the sky spreading my wings as I did so and rapidly gained hight, soon I was high enough to execute one of my special attacks 'Whirlwind Blade of the Heavens', folding my wings so that they trailed behind me I plunged spinning toward my target, blades held out ahead of me, within moments the Shogun was eliminated, 'so' I thought 'not one of the un-killable ones then'.

Two hours and 30 enemies later, I finally ran into a monster that didn't go down with one strike of 'Whirlwind Blade of the Heavens' like all the rest had, It was a modified copy of 'The One Death' labeled '][h3 0n3 D34±h'.

'Finally' I thought 'one that I can use my more powerful attacks on', and with that thought I executed one of my more potent attacks 'Edge of Infinity'. That defiantly had more impact cutting the creatures HP down from 8000 to 200 in one hit, but then I heard a strange chiming noise and its HP shot up to 20000 in the blink of an eye.

Ok I though if you won't play fare then neither will I. With that I shifted to my stage one Infinium-Epitaph form, growing in hight until I was 4 meters tall, the cape disappeared and the armour shifted from leather to shadow plate, the swords disappeared to be replaced by taloned gauntlets, but perhaps the most impressive change were the wings that changed from black feather to black scale and the leading edges gained deadly sharp barbs. "Now" I growled "you DIE!", I leapt forward performing the attack 'Infinity Strike', this cut its HP down to 10 but then it side swiped me sending me flying back and causing my BP (Barrier Points) to drop from 30000 to 0 quickly followed by 3000 of my 10000 HP this was a worry, even something that strong should not have been able to do that much damage in one go, this had to be one of the un-killable monsters I had heard of.

Now I was mad that thing simply had to be eliminated, "fine" I muttered, "going after a fly with a bazooka time", and with that I shifted again skipping all the other configurations and going strait to Stage X, now it would feel the full force of my wrath, 'Infinity Drain'. Beams of wight light streamed from the mid joints and tips of the wings and from the talons of my hands, this was no ordinary attack it was a hacked one similar to 'Drain Hart' but much more focused, where 'Drain Hart' would erase an entire area 'Infinity Drain' concentrated all that destructive potential on one target. The modified copy of 'The One Death' writhed as it decompiled, strings of 1's and 0's pouring out of it like streamers. Finally the monster was destroyed and I made my way back to the chaos gate and returned to Hulle Granz Cathedral just as I left I could have sworn I heard that chime I had heard before the monster changed, again.

– –


End file.
